4 weeks later: the birth story

If you know me in real life (and even if you don't it may have been extremely obvious from the blog) you remember I was pretty anxious to get our babe out of my belly and into our arms. I was determined that after 37 wks I would try to speed up the process. I'll start this story with the day before I gave birth.

Saturday morning, Nov 20th, I got up early and started a busy day. I took pictures for a family over in Indiana. Took back a rug to Old Time Pottery and bought some baskets for Lydia's room. OTP is a pretty big place so I walked all over and enjoyed looking at the tons of nick nacky items that lots of people are cluttering their homes with. Next it was off to Target to return a few items and walk all over that store. Lunch break. Spicy chicken sandwich from Chic-fil-a. Now that I had more energy I went to Walmart to do some much needed grocery shopping. All that lifting and bending and loading and unloading the car may have been the key:) Once I was home I put up the groceries and then got busy cleaning the house. **I'm really thankful that I went grocery shopping and cleaned the house because we then came home from the hospital to a clean house and a fridge full of food.** That evening Patrick and I went to a U of L game at the new stadium with our neighbor. The stadium is downtown (which means more walking) and our seats were all the way in the nose bleed section (more walking... stairs).

As we were walking back to our car after the game I said to Patrick, "Welp, no baby today." Getting in to bed that night and noticing my swollen feet I said a prayer something like this, "Lord, if this baby is healthy it'd be really kind of you to let her come soon. I'm getting pretty uncomfortable."

The Lord heard and answered:) My water broke at 3:30 that morning.

I was lying in bed and woke up after feeling a "pop" inside of me. Thankfully the water didn't just start gushing out of me onto the bed. I got up and made my way to the bathroom and then the leaking started. Once I made it into the tub the water literally GUSHED out. **side note: our hot water heater was out at this time.** I had always heard that you'd know when your water had broken because it would be pink tinged. That's exactly how it was. I called for Patrick to wake up. He quickly started warming up water in every pot we own. He was great. Once I had rinsed off we started talking about what to do next. Patrick, being in his right mind, told me I was not ready to go to the hospital yet because I was still smiling (they tell you in all the classes that if you are still smiling you are in an early phase of labor. I wanted to do most of my laboring at home to help in the process of delivering without medicine.). He suggested that we go back to bed and see what happens. I laid two of Lydia's diapers in my underwear to help protect against the leaking fluids and went back to bed. I of course was super excited and couldn't fall asleep very easily because I was constantly thinking, "is that a contraction??" It wasn't.

At 7:30 I woke up and felt that it would be best to start making our way to the hospital. We were rested and ready for the long day ahead of us.
8:30 checking in to hospital.
Once in triage they verify that, yes, my water has broken but I was still only 1 cm dilated. BOOO. This was discouraging. I had already been 1 cm dilated for 2 WEEKS and now my water had been broken for 5 hrs and my body wasn't wanting to progress. The nurse started talking about pitocin and looming possibility of a c-section if my water had been broken for 24 hrs and she still wasn't here. I think I got teary eyed at this point. I asked if I could please walk around and try some other methods to get labor going naturally. They said they'd let me try for about an hour.

Patrick and I were booking it around the labor and delivery halls. The nurses were laughing at our speed. I had a few contractions from this but nothing to get us excited.

My nurse (who was kind of annoying to me) came in to start the pitocin.
My mom and sister arrive shortly after I had been given pitocin and the hanging out and waiting now begins.
Nurse kept turning up pitocin and I'm still feeling nothing. I'm thinking, "wow, my body must be tough," because I had heard of how pitocin really kicked other people's butt.
Well 4 hrs after I had supposedly gotten pitocin a new nurse came in and realized I wasn't getting pitocin at all. The line that was carrying my pitocin was DRIPPING ON THE FLOOR! WHAT?!? Talk about another set back. I really wanted to cry at this point. All I could think about was how that was 4 hrs closer to a c-section because the nurse didn't hook my line up correctly. The new nurse (who I didn't find nearly as annoying) hooked me up and started the process of pitocin all over again. HA funny me thinking I was tough. Pitocin KICKED my butt! HARD.
I was in a ton of pain and thanks to my sister's pointing out I was only experiencing mild contractions. She (not knowing she was annoying me :) I love you Bekah), "oh that once was pretty good. It hit about 48. When I was in active labor I was hitting like 100." SHEESH this is only half as bad as its going to get??? I buried my head and started crying.
At this point I'm wrestling with myself. Should I just get the stinking epidural? Why am I being so stubborn? Am I trying to prove something? Ok, I'm just being prideful I want that epidural! I asked my mom and sister to leave and talked it over with Patrick. He had thought all along that I should just get the epidural. He kindly told me that if I really wanted to go natural I could but if I was only not getting an epidural because I was being prideful, well then I should get the epidural. Alright, lets get it! He told my mom and sister they could come back in. My sister went right away to tell the nurse I wanted an epidural. Within 30 min I had my epidural and was feeling wonderful. BEST decision ever! (I still think natural unmedicated briths are great and would possibly like to try delivering that way in the future. The way my labor started just made it really difficult for me to take that route this time.)

I felt a ton better after getting that sucker. This was at 4:30 pm. I had been in labor now for 13 hrs. The nurse checked me at this point and said I was 4 cm. I was glad to hear that at least the butt kicking pitocin was doing its job and moving me along.

After getting the epidural I could still feel when I was having contractions. They weren't painful though, only pressure. Around 6:00 my mom and sister left with my dad and other sister to get dinner. I started feeling a lot of pressure down low. At 7:00 pm the shift was changing so I got a new nurse. She came in to introduce herself and check all my stuff out. When she checked me she was shocked (as were we) to see that I was fully dilated and the babe's head was right there. I was ready to push. Thank you epidural for relaxing my body and letting me dilate. Patrick called my mom and sister to let them know. They left the restaurant and came back. (My dad stayed and brought the food to all of us later.. I was thankful for this once I could eat. Those rolls and cinnamon butter were DELICOUS)

Anyway. They called my doctor and my nurse started transforming my bed from normal to delivery bed. She kept standing down there and told me she wasn't moving because she wanted to make sure our baby didn't just slide out.
My doctor (who is AWESOME) got there and as soon as the room was set up told me start pushing. I had a mirror down there so I could see what was going on. (For those of you that are pregnant, I really recommend the mirror. It helps you see when the pushing is being effective. Also when everyone is saying, "Oh look, there's the head!!!" you want to see what they're seeing.) After 3 contractions and a lesson on pushing correctly, Lydia was out and into our arms. I was crying while pushing, not because of the pain (my epidural was great) but because of the excited and amazement that I could see my baby's head and I was about to finally get to see what she looked like. When she came out the cord was wrapped around her neck 2x. Dr. G just unwrapped it and acted like it was no big deal. Patrick cut the cord and then they handed my precious little girl up to me and I was just in awe. What a surreal moment. Patrick was right there by my side and we were both in tears just admiring this great gift the Lord has given us.
It's hard to remember all the emotions just like they happened but pretty much this was one of the best moments of my life.

We hadn't decided on her name and were hoping that when we saw her it would just come to us. It didn't. Patrick ended up being the one to decide she'd be Lydia Esther. I love it. She's our sweet girl Lydia.

Right from the beginning she was been great. Eating well. Sleeping well. Happy. Healthy. Pretty much she's spoiled us. What are we going to do when she actually has a bad day?

K, sorry that was so long. And hopefully I didn't include too much info that was too much info :)